on the basis of the ḥadīth of Abū Mahdhūrah, even though that report includes the tarjīʿ (the low-voiced repetition of the shahāda) in the adhān, a feature they themselves do not practice. The Shāfiʿīs did the opposite: they adopted the tarjīʿ mentioned in the ḥadīth but left aside its instruction to double the iqāma. For this reason al-Nawawī said:

“We and the followers of Abū Ḥanīfa are agreed that the ḥadīth of Abū Mahdhūrah cannot be acted upon in its literal sense, because it combines the tarjīʿ with the doubling of the iqāma. They reject the tarjīʿ, and we reject the doubling; therefore both sides are compelled to interpret the report. Opting for the single recitation is preferable, for it accords with the remaining narrations and the sound aḥādīth such as that of Anas and others.”

I say: al-Nawawī did not explain how they interpret the report, and in truth it admits of no interpretation, for it explicitly states that the words of the iqāma are seventeen, whereas in their reckoning they are eleven, as will be shown below.

True, al-Nawawī and others quoted al-Bayhaqī as having criticised the report on the grounds that Muslim recorded it in his Ṣaḥīḥ, as noted earlier, without mentioning the iqāma, along with further objections listed in Nasb al-Rāyah; yet none of these points in any way undermine the authenticity of the ḥadīth as a whole.

Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd replied to him at sufficient length and concluded that the report is sound; see al-Zaylaʿī.

The reality is that both camps—the Ḥanafīs and the Shāfiʿīs—have displayed partisanship for their respective schools, each side rejecting the portion of truth embraced by the other. Equity requires accepting all that both of them accepted of the authentic content of the ḥadīth.